First lesson for returning players: can old saves still be used, should you restart, and how to transfer and back up.
FAQ
Capture, Tower Bosses & Progression FAQ
1.0's capture bonus change, tower boss rework, cheaper condensation and 10-level work suitability.
Questions in this guide
- What changed about capturing in 1.0?
- Does 30% capture rate mean 3 spheres guarantee it?
- The most common mistake catching high-end Pals?
- What changed with tower bosses, and in what order?
- What changed about Condensation?
- Why isn't my partner skill working? Where do saddles unlock?
- How does 10-level work suitability play?
- What other progression changes landed in 1.0?
- Always short on Ancient Civilization Cores, Coralum Ore or Chromite?
- Where do Raids and PvP stand in 1.0?
What changed about capturing in 1.0?
The Capture Bonus now completes in 5 catches instead of 12; capturing is faster overall.
Official changelog: completing a species' Capture Bonus now takes 5 captures instead of 12. In practice you max a species' bonus after just 5 catches, which speeds up progression, leveling and Paldeck completion — casually catching extras pays off far more than in EA.
Capture rates were also rebalanced alongside endgame Pal stats. Don't budget spheres from EA muscle memory — run the capture calculator on the 1.0 coefficients.
Does 30% capture rate mean 3 spheres guarantee it?
No: each sphere rolls independently — three straight failures still happen ~34% of the time.
Every sphere is an independent roll. At 30%, three throws all failing happens 0.7³ ≈ 34.3% of the time — one player in three whiffs all three. Expected spheres are 1/0.3 ≈ 3.3, but expectation is not a cap: always pack a failure margin, and read the calculator's expected cost as an average, never a guarantee.
The most common mistake catching high-end Pals?
Bursting with the hard-counter element and killing the target; finish with a low-multiplier element instead.
Using counter elements to burn HP is fine; the mistake is finishing with the same kit and overkilling past the line. Once HP is low, switch to a low-multiplier element or a weak weapon to hold the health bar, stack back-attacks and status effects (paralysis / freeze) to raise the effective rate, then throw.
What changed with tower bosses, and in what order?
Every tower reworked; the timer cut from 10 to 5 minutes; nine bosses, lowest level first.
Official: every tower is visually and mechanically reworked, some bosses gained new moves, and the fight timer drops from 10 to 5 minutes with stats retuned to match — less slack, so counter-element teams matter more than in EA. Hard-mode tower bosses now unlock by defeating the Azure Covenant tower boss.
The nine towers by recommended level, low to high (community-compiled, per-tower on-site verification pending): Zoe & Grizzbolt (10) → Lily & Lyleen (20) → Axel & Orserk (30) → Marcus & Faleris (40) → Victor & Shadowbeak (50) → Saya & Selyne (55) → Bjorn & Bastigar (60) → Auri & Shaolong (68) → Zenara & Astralym (80). The finale, Astralym, is typeless in the site data layer — no elemental weakness to exploit, so raw progression and damage plans decide it.
What changed about Condensation?
Max rank now costs 48 same-species Pals instead of 116 — a huge burden cut.
Officially, max condensation drops from 116 to 48 Pals. Two linked changes: each rank-up now raises one random work suitability level, and reaching max rank raises them all — condensation shifts from a combat luxury to a dual investment in fighting power and base efficiency, and the 5-catch capture bonus makes gathering fodder faster too.
Why isn't my partner skill working? Where do saddles unlock?
Mount and weapon skills need Pal gear from the tech tree first; party and ranch skills work bare.
Partner skills activate three ways: mount / weapon skills need that Pal's dedicated gear (saddle, harness) unlocked in the tech tree and crafted at the Pal Gear Workbench — the "Technology NN" note at the end of the skill description is the unlock level; party passives work the moment the Pal joins your party; base skills trigger only when assigned to the right facility. Skill levels 1–5 rise through same-species condensation, with the full growth table on every Paldeck page.
For the full mechanics, exemplar Pals of all 7 skill categories, the Alpha-egg combo and IV viewing, see the dedicated guide on partner skills and saddles.
How does 10-level work suitability play?
Cap raised to 10 with all Pals rebalanced; ranks, condensation and handbooks raise levels.
Official: the work suitability cap expands to 10 levels with every Pal rebalanced. Three ways up — each rank-up raises one random suitability, max condensation raises them all, and the new "Applied Ranching Handbook I" targets ranching specifically, with applied-technique items easier to obtain overall.
The base-building consequence (community consensus): with high-level gaps widening, generalist Pals fall clearly behind specialists — build assembly lines around level 9–10 specialists per job to hit 1.0's real throughput ceiling. The on-site Paldeck filters by work suitability directly.
What other progression changes landed in 1.0?
Level cap 80, Pal Effigy collection buffs, watchtower travel, auto-run.
The official list: level cap 65 → 80 with a new ancient-tech tier; Lifmunk Effigies reworked into "Pal Effigies" — collect effigies of various Pals to buff your own stats (already-collected ones carry over); watchtowers added everywhere that reveal the map and become fast-travel points; auto-run added; dungeon layouts, rewards and chest drops fully retuned, with 15 new random dungeon entrances in Feybreak.
Always short on Ancient Civilization Cores, Coralum Ore or Chromite?
All three have production lines: breed-and-butcher Dandilord for Cores, Whalaska / Neptilius for Coralum, and bring Smokie for Chromite.
First separate Cores from Parts: Ancient Civilization Parts drop from every field Alpha and are rarely short — the Core is what gates your tech. The Core line lives at the World Tree: the level 78 Alpha Dandilord drops a guaranteed 1 each, so catch a male and female, breed same-species (an ignoreCombi Pal) and butcher the offspring for 1 Core apiece. Before endgame, bridge with expedition reward pools and raid-boss guarantees; from level 74 the Ancient Relic Recycler batch-converts relics plus water into Cores most efficiently.
Coralum Ore has three lanes: ocean salvage with the fishing magnet, hunting Whalaska on the frozen seas (guaranteed 2–3, Alpha 5–10), or catching a pair of Whalaska / the level 60 Alpha Neptilius (guaranteed 10) to breed same-species and butcher. Chromite is the ore that never enters the quarry line: take a Metal Detector into Feybreak caverns and dungeons to dig buried deposits, and bring Smokie to detect them directly and boost Chromite drops. Locations and full lines are in the mining guide.
Where do Raids and PvP stand in 1.0?
Raids majorly reworked plus the Negotiator; PvP and Arena Legend are new official modes.
Official: the base-defense Raid system is heavily reworked and adds "The Negotiator" mechanic — the usual prep (battle team, ammo, healing, base output and fortifications) still applies, but trigger and wave logic follow 1.0. PvP and the Arena Legend arena are brand-new official modes whose rules and balance are still iterating through official announcements; the site holds off on PvP build guides rather than publish guesses.
Other guide FAQs
The 1.0 endgame regions and Awakening materials: how to farm Radiant Gems and craft Awakening Crystals.
Mutation odds, the four new cakes, the combo reshuffle and legendaries — the companion Q&A to the breeding calculator.
Lag, sanity, sickness, the tech tree and resource activities — quick answers for daily base life.
Host co-op or dedicated server, settings generation, operations and migration.